The San Tan Valley Town Council adopted the Town of San Tan Valley's first zoning ordinance, zoning map and full town code at a special meeting June 1, putting the legal framework in place for the town to take over local government on July 1.

The council also approved a separate agreement for the Pinal County Sheriff's Office to keep providing law enforcement inside the town through the end of the year.

All three measures passed at the meeting at the San Tan Valley County Complex Bronze Room, 31505 N. Schnepf Road. Town officials described July 1 as the date the town legally takes over responsibility for delivering services, and said having a town code in place by then was a critical piece of that handoff.

What the Council Adopted

The town code is the full set of rules the town will operate under, and the zoning ordinance is the part that governs how land can be used — what can be built where, and under what conditions. The zoning ordinance runs about 250 pages, and the town code that contains it runs about 213 pages, according to staff. The town code folds in the zoning ordinance along with the building codes, the floodplain ordinance the council previously adopted, animal control rules and the town's engineering and design standards.

The council handled the adoption in stages. It first approved two resolutions placing the documents on file as public records — a step that lets the town reference the lengthy documents in the ordinances without reprinting hundreds of pages. It then adopted Ordinance No. 2026-04 for the zoning ordinance and zoning map (viewable below), and Ordinance No. 2026-05 for the town code, both with an effective date of July 1, 2026.

Town Community Development Director Gilbert Olgin and Matt Klyszeiko of Michael Baker International, the town's consultant, presented the zoning ordinance and walked the council through the feedback gathered during the process. Olgin said the town held three community workshops on the draft and carried over property owners' existing county zoning where possible, so they keep the closest comparable zoning district they have today.

A Starting Point, Not a Final Word

Officials repeatedly described the code as a living document that the council can revise as issues come up. Town attorney Allen Quist of Pierce Coleman PLLC said the zoning ordinance is harder to change than the rest of the town code because it requires review by the planning and zoning commission and additional public hearings, but that updates are still expected.

Town Manager Brent Billingsley said funds are budgeted in the 2026-27 year to hire a consultant to review the code, with the plan to apply it for about six months, identify problem areas, then run a formal amendment process for any fixes. Officials also noted that state lawmakers change land-use and zoning rules nearly every year, which will force regular updates regardless.

Olgin said staff is already finding minor items to clean up and will keep a running list to address with the town attorney when appropriate. He said the issues identified so far are minor, not major.

Council Changes Outdoor Lighting Language

The one change the council made on the floor involved the outdoor lighting section. Vice Mayor Tyler Hudgins moved to strike a line stating that the purpose was to preserve the low light level conditions "inherently characteristic of the rural lifestyle," saying he worried it would leave the impression that the town is a designated dark sky community, which it is not.

Hudgins said he supported protecting darker conditions in the parts of the town that are rural, but wanted the broad language removed so it would not be read as applying town-wide. After discussion, the council agreed instead to reword the line to refer to "the rural areas in San Tan Valley." Staff said the language sits in an introductory purpose-and-intent section and has no direct regulatory effect on its own.

To make the change, the council reopened the related public-records resolution, amended the language, then adopted it. The amendment passed unanimously on a roll-call vote.

Sheriff's Office to Keep Policing the Town Through December

In its final action, the council adopted Resolution No. 2026-18, an intergovernmental agreement with the Pinal County Sheriff's Office to continue providing basic law enforcement services inside the town. An intergovernmental agreement, or IGA, is a contract between two government bodies to share or provide a service.

The agreement covers law enforcement within the Town of San Tan Valley's boundaries only. In the larger, unincorporated San Tan Valley area outside the town, the Sheriff's Office will continue to provide policing as it always has, as a standard county service.

Staff said the agreement is a six-month stopgap running through the end of the year, designed to keep coverage in place while the town negotiates a longer-term arrangement. Negotiations on an extension are set to begin in October. The total cost for the six-month period is $6.8 million, which covers the personnel, equipment, vehicles and facilities to police a town of about 100,000 people. Staff said dispatch and detention services are handled through separate agreements.

Staff said the agreement was updated since the council last saw it to add a reporting provision making clear the town can request additional information from the Sheriff's Office — including staffing, response times, calls for service, billing, complaints and community concerns — and that the county has agreed to provide accounting on the contract's costs at the town manager's request.

During public comment, a resident asked whether the agreement involves U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Staff said that was never discussed and is not part of the contract, and referred the question to Pinal County, noting the town is contracting with the county Sheriff's Office, not running the department.

In Other Business

At the June 1 special meeting, the council also approved its consent agenda, which placed the town code and zoning documents on file as public records under Resolution No. 2026-26 and Resolution No. 2026-27.

The council's zoning ordinance and town code take effect July 1, 2026, the date the town assumes responsibility for its own services.